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Guity Nashat

Guity Nashat was a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern history at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

An economic historian, she has written about the role of women in Iran and Islamic society. Her current research deals with the evolution of government in the Middle East since the rise of Islam.

Nashat has authored The Origins of Modern Reform in Iran, 1870-1880 (1982) and Middle Eastern History Selected Reading Lists and Course Outlines from American Colleges and Universities (1988), coauthored (with Nobel laureate Gary Becker) The Economics of Life (1997) and (with Judith Tucker) Women in the Middle East and North Africa (1999). She has edited Women and Revolution in Iran (1984) and coedited (with Lois Beck) Women in Iran from the Rise of Islam to 1800 (2003) and Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic (2004).

She has contributed chapters and entries to Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World,Encyclopedia Iranica,Encyclopedia of Women in World History,Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender,Blackwell Companion to History, and the Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History. She has also written numerous scholarly articles on women and reform movements in the Middle East for scholarly journals. Her work has been translated into Persian, Arabic, and Italian.

In addition, she has presented papers in numerous national and international conferences and seminars and has been invited to lecture at conferences in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Nashat participated in the task force organized by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations on Muslims American Civic and Political Engagement.

Nashat is a member of the Iranian Studies Association, the Middle East Studies Association, and the Mont Pelerin Society. She is currently an adviser to the Gender Economic Research and Policy Analysis of the World Bank and the visiting committee of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.

She received a BA from Barnard College, an MS from the Columbia University School of Journalism, and a PhD from the University of Chicago.

It's been nearly twenty-five years since the shah of Iran was overthrown in a popular revolution. The ensuing American hostage crisis marked the beginning of an era of mutual hostility between Iran and the United States—Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini often called the United States "the Great Satan"; more recently President Bush placed Iran on the so-called axis of evil. But an increasingly visible democratic reform movement supported by young Iranians born after the revolution suggests that Iran may be entering a new era of change. Just how powerful is the reform movement in Iran? And what should the United States do, if anything, to help bring about a new Iran?

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